


in paris (won't even try to compare)

by makeitbetter



Category: The Beatles (Band)
Genre: M/M, it's a modern au oops
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-05
Updated: 2019-08-05
Packaged: 2020-07-31 20:34:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20121277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/makeitbetter/pseuds/makeitbetter
Summary: paris in the summer feels like something out of a dream.//or: the one where they meet in modern day paris





	in paris (won't even try to compare)

**Author's Note:**

> this is exactly what it says on the tin, tbh (and self indulgent as hell). also i've never been to paris so these are just my overly romantic notions of what it's like there. title is from [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNe7wgvZmCE) song (again).

paris in the summer feels like something out of a dream.

you might be staying in the smallest apartment known to man, where the floorboards creak whenever you so much as breathe too hard, and it might be that you still can’t speak much french, but the sun is always high and golden in the sky and the city is never short of beautiful people, a never-ending source of inspiration.

it’s everything you could have dreamed of and so much more, sitting outside the small cafe on the nearby street corner and watching the world pass you by.

an observer, that’s what you are.

**/ **

one day you’re sitting outside this cafe, swirling the straw around your glass of iced coffee, thinking about everything and nothing at the same time, when someone taps you on the shoulder and asks you something in french before you’ve barely had the chance to turn around.

there’s a stretch of awkward silence, because that lack of conversational french is really not doing you any favours, before the bloke standing behind your chair raises an eyebrow.

“cigarettes?” he says in english this time, and, if you’re not mistaken, you can hear the familiar tones of liverpool in his voice, a piece of home in a city that is so far away. “you got any cigarettes?”

**/ **

john (from liverpool - you were right) is twenty three and, as it turns out, had no real intentions of coming to paris at all.

you take a walk down by the river together, clutching throw-away cups of coffee and sharing cigarettes like you’ve known each other for years. you find out that john was supposed to be aiming for spain, on this impromptu getaway to see something that isn’t home for once, but changed his mind because something about paris enchanted him, just as it has you. you also find out that he thinks buddy holly is top notch and that modern music is the bane of his very existence, that he’s in a band back home so he should know these things. you start to think he might be someone who likes to talk - when it comes to music, anyway - but you also find that you don’t mind because you like to listen to him, like the way his eyes light up with an enthusiasm you feel in yourself.

at one point, john starts fumbling for another cigarette. “you know anything about writing songs, paulie?”

you shrug. “a bit, ‘suppose.”

john smiles like you’ve just told him that christmas has come early.

**/**

john comes back with you to your poky little apartment and it feels so completely natural that you don’t even think about it. you put a song on the record player in the corner, and set about making tea, but john seems less interested in those things - barely pays them any mind - and more interested in the guitar that sits at the foot of your bed.

“you play?”

“sometimes.”

you take a seat on the floor as you wait for the kettle to finish boiling, reaching for the guitar to start playing, filling the gaps in the record with unpolished bits of melody that have been floating around in your head for the past couple of weeks.

john smokes his latest cigarette in silence, simply listening.

“and you say you don’t play often?” he says when you’ve finished.

“not that often.”

“you should, you know.”

he says it like it’s a solid fact, just one of those things. you’ve known john barely a day, but hearing him say that makes you feel like you _should_, like you should listen to that spark of creativity.

you almost want to tell him that - but you don’t because john is already distracted, attention elsewhere.

“_ugh -_” he’s now glaring at the record player in the corner like it’s personally offended him “- what the fuck is this we’re listening to? it’s bloody_ awful_.”

and even though you happen to like this song, you find yourself smiling.

**/**

john shows up one afternoon - unannounced, as is his style - when you’re in the middle of a skype call to a friend back home in liverpool.

“this is john,” you say as he stands behind your chair, squinting slightly at the screen because he refuses to wear his glasses. “he doesn’t like me much.”

“obviously,” is john’s dry reply, a reply that has you shaking your head because you know he doesn’t mean it and george raising an eyebrow, like he thinks he knows something you don’t.

“it’s not like that,” you say, when it’s an hour later and john has left, and george is staring at you out of the screen after uttering the words _don’t tell me you don’t see how he looks at you_. “we’re just friends.”

george laughs at that, almost in disbelief - he tells you there’s no way that people who look at each other the way john looks at you can be_ just friends_.

maybe he’s right - and _yet_, you think, maybe this is just the way john is with everyone, that you are just no exception.

(it’s when you get up to put the used mugs in the sink that you realise that you never actually asked john what exactly he stopped by for.)

**/ **

john has two and a half days left in paris when he casually mentions that he hasn’t actually been up to the top of the eiffel tower. you nearly spit your mouthful of tea across the floor.

“_how?_”

he shrugs. “never got round to it, ‘suppose.”

“appalling,” you reply. “that settles it. you and me, tomorrow morning, we’re going.”

you half expect john to just laugh in your face, especially when you tell him to drop by _early_, but he’s waiting outside your building at eight in the morning, just as you said, one hand in the pocket of his jacket and the other holding a camera. you offer him one of your headphones and you listen to the radio as you walk, a flurry of different french ballads that john somehow knows all of and you know none of. you just nod to the beat whilst john quietly sings along, as if he doesn’t want to disturb the quiet sense of peace over a paris that is just starting the day, and it kind of sounds like he’s just making up the words when he doesn’t quite know them, because what comes out of his mouth doesn’t always match with what’s in your ear - and it doesn’t even matter. it doesn’t matter because you kind of get the sense that it’s _supposed_ to be like this; you were always supposed to meet john.

“people are staring,” you say, nodding in the direction of a couple across the street.

“fuckin’ let them,” john replies, and sings a little louder to prove his point, still all the wrong words, and even that doesn’t matter. it’s just the way things are.

you’re pleased to see that your brilliant plan of getting there early has worked out well; there’s barely any queues, and you don’t even mind that john spends the entire climb complaining about how you failed to mention the amount of steps involved.

from the top of the eiffel tower, paris is sprawling beneath you - you’ve seen it many times since you’ve been here, but in the early morning sun it’s even more breathtaking. it’s almost - _almost_ \- enough to distract from john beside you, his face bathed in the sunlight as he gazes out at the view, snapping photographs.

maybe this _is_ just you seeing what you want to see. maybe the shared smiles and the adventures around paris and the feeling that this is meant to be don’t mean the same thing to john that they do to you. it wouldn’t be the first time - paris is just the kind of place that has that effect on you, that brings out the hopeless romantic.

“you’re off in your head again,” john says suddenly; you realise he’s smiling. “what’s going on up there, hm?”

it’s the only time you’ve ever felt like you can’t tell him what you’re thinking.

**/ **

although john’s flight home is scheduled for the morning, he stops by your building the night before he leaves, the last of his time in the city slipping away with the setting of the sun.

“don’t forget about me, eh?” he says, knocking shoulders with you as you lean against the wall, sharing one last cigarette, and you don’t have the right amount of words to tell him you never could, not now, not ever, and especially not when he kisses you on the cheek just before he goes.

“_au revoir_,” he says, before you part ways, and you really wish that your limited knowledge of french didn’t include that phrase.

**/ **

paris without john is a different paris.

it’s still beautiful, still full of all those beautiful people, but now it’s almost like it’s missing something, the one specific beautiful person you want to see the most.

by the fourth day, you think you might be going through some kind of withdrawal.

for once, paris is such a lonely place to be.

**/ **

two weeks and three days later (not that you’re counting them or anything), a postcard drops in your letterbox.

or, at least, at first you _think_ it’s a postcard given the size, but you realise as soon as you pick it up that this isn’t the case. it’s a printed photograph taken from the top of the eiffel tower, of you caught in the glow of the early morning, looking off into the distance - off in your head, as some may say.

you turn it over; there’s a message scribbled on the back in messy handwriting.

_you better listen to some better music before i get back. - john. _

you smile. city of love, indeed. 

**Author's Note:**

> rest in peace capital letters, you had a good run of it.


End file.
